More photos of the Expo and Awards Ceremony have been added
to the Expo page as well.

On Friday, May 6, ten schools in Doña Ana County got together to
celebrate completing their first GUTS Club year. Meeting at Doña Ana
Community College, they participated in Round Tables to share their
projects and enjoy programming workshops. Topics included Flash,
3D graphics, and two robotics sessions. A fractals presentation opened
the program. The eighth graders are looking forward to participating in
the Challenge next year and the fifth-seventh graders will continue in
GUTS with new projects. Congratulations all around!

Have a good rest of the year and we look forward to seeing many
of you participating in the 2011-2012 Supercomputing Challenge.

Sincerely yours,
Betsy, Celia and David for Consult

Monday Morning Message, May 2, 2011

It's May, it's May, the lovely month of May!

Expo/Awards Day

Our end of the year celebration seems to get better and better with
each passing year. We are especially proud of the first year teams who
completed the Challenge marathon.

We encourage these teams and the returning teams to come back next
year. We wish all our seniors and especially the 20 scholarship winners
all the best in their future endeavors and in college. We will invite
them to join our alumni association and to come back and help us at the
Kickoff and Awards Day. (Send Consult an email if you want to be added
to the alumni email list.)

Los Alamos Middle School team 72, Los Alamos High team 56, were named
1st, 2nd place winners and team 36 from Desert Academy in Santa Fe and 43
from Eldorado and La Cueva high schools in Albuquerque tied for 3rd place.
Congratulations to the finalists and all of the awards winners for taking
the Challenge!

Winners of awards: we appreciate you writing a thank you note to the
organization or person who sponsored your awards. These volunteers and
sponsors are the backbone of the Challenge.

Supercomputing Challenge at the NMSTE/Innovate Educate Conference

At the April 29th-30th NMSTE/Innovate Education Conference, Talaya White,
Challenge alum and mentor and Sara Harste, Desert Academy gave a presentation.
Visit their recorded webinar, "The Black Death, Garbage Patches and the
Supercomputing Challenge" at
http://nmsu.na5.acrobat.com/p60482966

Dr. Ann Gates, keynote breakfast speaker, was introduced by Irene Lee,
Principal Investigator for Project GUTS, GUTS Y Girls and President of the
Supercomputing Challenge Board of Directors. The keynote topic was "Stuck in
the Shallow End, Getting More Hispanics in Computing".

Albert Simon teacher sponsor from Alamogordo presented a workshop entitled
"Increasing Involvement and Success in Technology Among Minorities and Young Women".

Dr. Richard Oliver, NMSU Associate Professor in the department of
Accounting and Information Systems at New Mexico State University and Challenge
mentor and facilitator, gave a talk outlining key Computational Thinking concepts.

Summer Opportunities

We have many summer opportunities for students and teachers. We will have
Summer Roundups at New Mexico State University, Northern New Mexico College,
University of New Mexico, and in Las Vegas, and Silver City.

Details for Roundups in Dona Ana County can be found at Seamless Summer:
http://seamlesssummer.com. Information
about the Albuquerque, Las Vegas, and Silver City Roundups will be up on that
link soon. Write to Consult for more information.

Additionally, GUTS y Girls workshops will be held in Santa Fe and Albuquerque.
For information, Irene Lee ireneannelee @ gmail.com

The Summer Teacher Institute will be held at New Mexico Tech during the
last two weeks of July. Additionally, a Java programming course is open to
teachers in the first two weeks of July at NMT. Graduate credit through the
Master Science Teacher program at New Mexico is offered free to members of
the Challenge and GUTS communities.

Sincerely yours,
Betsy, Celia and David for Consult

Thursday Afternoon Message, April 21, 2011

Congratulations to the first-round finalists

Team 7 from Albuquerque Academy, Team 43 from Eldorado and La Cueva highs, Teams 56 and 66 from Los Alamos High and Teams 69 and 72 from Los Alamos Middle School. At the conclusion of the Expo, the Expo Judges will select another three or four teams to be second-round finalists. The schedule for Finalist presentations is at:
http://challenge.nm.org//expo/finalist_sched.shtml

Scholarship Interviews

Phone Numbers

If you have need to contact us:
Betsy's number is 505-220-5050,
Celia's number is 505-453-5785,
and David will be at the Study Center registration
desk on Monday at 505-667-0824.

Weather

The weather forecast for Sunday through Tuesday of next week has a 30% chance of rain
for Los Alamos with temperatures between 43 degrees in the mornings to 64 degrees in the
afternoons so dress in layers and be prepared for the chance of rain. Do wear or bring
comfortable walking shoes for the tours after your presentations.

Bradbury

Remember the reception at the Bradbury Science Museum Monday night from 5:00-7:00, refreshments will be served. See the directions page on the Expo web site for a map that includes the Bradbury.

Be practicing your oral presentations and polishing up those
poster displays. Don't forget about the 2011-2012 logo contest,
the Challenge participants will vote for the best logo design for
next year's Challenge.

Don't forget to go to the Bradbury Science Museum on Monday
night from 5:00-7:00 for a special Supercomputing Challenge
reception.

Tuesday morning's Award Ceremony is ramping up to be a
high flying success.

Sincerely yours,
Betsy, Celia and David for Consult

Monday Morning Message, April 11, 2011

Expo and Awards Day

49 Final Reports have been submitted and posted and the finalist judges
are in the process of reviewing them and will select first round finalist
teams next week. 38 Teams are registered for the Expo and Awards Day.
That means that we still need to hear from a dozen or so more teams. Help
us confirm our hotel reservations and order enough food by going to the
registration link and letting us know your plans:
http://challenge.nm.org/expo/registration.shtml.
Remember that we need to know who is coming: bus drivers, teachers, parents,
and teams so that we can be prepared. The housing lists have been posted
for the Best Western and the Comfort Inn hotels in Los Alamos. If you live
more that 60 miles from Los Alamos, check to make sure we have reserved a
room for you. See: http://www.challenge.nm.org/expo/ and look for the Hotel
arrangements. The Challenge covers the cost of the hotel. In general,
students are placed four to a room and teachers two to a room. Rooms usually
have two beds.

Activities for this week:

You can work on your poster presentation for the Expo. There are guidelines
at http://challenge.nm.org/expo/displayboard.shtml.
Your poster can become the basis for the Technical Poster. If you decide to
enter the Graphical Poster contest for next year's logo, that design goes on
a separate poster. Check out the details at
http://challenge.nm.org/expo/logo_poster.shtml.
This is probably not something you can get done on the bus on the way up the
hill to Los Alamos!

Remember that at the Expo you will have 20 minutes to explain your project
to a team of judges. Find some friends to practice your presentation or video
yourselves. Friends can help you by letting you know if you are speaking
clearly and if you are getting your ideas across. The Expo is an intimate
setting but you still need to not be too soft-spoken. Here is the rubric the
judges use to help them make good and helpful comments about your work.
http://challenge.nm.org/expo/expo_rubric.pdf

As always, please write to consult @ challenge.nm.org if you have questions
about any part of Expo Award Days.

Daniel from Team 112 adapted his project and competed in the Senior Division,
National Science Fair, of the National Society of Black Engineers, and took home
Overall First Place. We are proud of you!

"Spring is Fireball Season"

The Science@NASA team is pleased to announce a new product: the ScienceCast.
Every week, we produce a short video highlighting a topic in NASA science news.
This week's episode is about the night sky. Check out "Spring is Fireball Season"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssMdlTbvHJk
A complete list of ScienceCast episodes may be found on Science@NASA's Youtube
channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/ScienceAtNASA. Enjoy!

Keep up the good work and we'll see you soon!

Betsy, Celia and David for Consult.

Monday Afternoon Message, April 4, 2011

Final Reports! Due Wednesday, April 6.

Registration for Expo-Awards Day: Wednesday, April 6.

If your team plans to attend, please fill out and submit the form at
http://challenge.nm.org/expo/registration.shtml.
Make sure you register as a TEAM, not individually. The Challenge will make
the hotel reservations based on the information on the registration form.
Be sure to include everyone who might be coming, teachers, chaperones, bus drivers ...

Practice your presentation. Have a 20 minute presentation ready to go
and be ready for questions. You can bring a laptop to use in your presentation
but you'll need to return it to your vehicle before going on the tours.

Thanks to Nick and Harry!

The Challenge revolves around the work of some dedicated volunteers.
Harry Henderson and Nick Bennett helped students from Picacho Middle
School with a tutorial on March 6th. They were in Albuquerque to go
on the UNM Tour.

Reports on the Tours

Holly Campbell, Freedom High, Albuquerque, shares "I had a wonderful time
on the Sandia tour. We went first to a solar energy tower, which uses
concentrated solar energy to create power, or melt through metals in
30 seconds or less. They also use it to test how quickly the glass on
fighter jets, which is now also used in transition lenses, changes
from clear to sun shaded. Afterwards, we went to a presentation on
what supercomputers are used for, which doubled as an advertisement
program for their flash 3D system and their extremely high definition
screen. Next we went to visit their supercomputer rooms where they
had several processors, and memory storage units, each storing several
hundred terabytes. We then had a great lunch consisting of Dion's
pizza, sodas, and cookies. We then visited a building where they make
microchips. We saw their clean rooms on a tour guided by someone who
appreciates star trek as much as I do, and learned how clean rooms are
kept "clean," and the process they use to dress themselves in clean
suits. The last thing we did on our trip was the visit the core reactor.
It was interesting on it is own, but I found the most interesting thing
about it was that it wasn't in a building built for it. The building was
built, seemingly as a giant garage, before they even knew they were going
to have a core, and then the core was moved into it after wards. We all
got scanned for radiation, even though there was no possibility of getting
a mentionable amount without sticking out hands in the tank, as it was turned off.

Leonel Herrera, from Picacho Middle School in Las Cruces, writes, "We
stayed at the Holiday Inn Express and rested half an hour. Later Nick
Bennett was in the lobby of the hotel waiting to help us to make the
StarLogo model better and to help us with the PowerPoint. We learned
that the UNM CARC (Center for Advanced Research Computing) was an old
store of cars and that 3-D glasses use infrared to get the signals of
the computer to do the 3-D effects. We saw movies in a big dome in a
room and we know how different projectors work together to make only
one picture."

Felicia Martinez, also from Picacho, writes, "The GUTS group went on
a field trip to Albuquerque to learn more about things we can do for our
project, and we learned about other students' projects. There were two
schools at UNM. Those middle schools were Picacho Middle School and
Jackson Middle School. We learned that plasma was made out of energy and
gasses such as helium and can create bombs or a power plant with energy.
Also we saw how UNM students made robots with sensor detectors on them to
move if they sense something in front of them and they told us that they
will try to get something like a GPS on them if they had a specific
destination and to make a 3-D map if it will need it. Finally in our
last class we were with an assistant professor at UNM named Jamesina
and she told us about her project on the different types of waves.
There are many type of waves like if you call someone on your cell
phone it will send phone waves and how the earthquakes and lightning
storms can have waves to go across the world. Thank you for reading
my paragraph on the field trip and letting us go on the field trip."

Summer Programs

Santa Fe Institute and Groton School
Summer Complexity and Modeling Program (CAMP)
Session: July 9 to 23, 2011

Explore complexity science through ecology research in the fields and
woodlands of northeastern Massachusetts. The Santa Fe Institute and Groton
School--respective leaders in the field of complex systems and college prep
education-offer this intensive two-week residential program on the Groton
campus. Using computer modeling, field data, discussions and seminars,
and team collaborations you'll conduct research in cutting edge complexity
science. Days are made up of instruction, small working group sessions,
and research time combined with sports and extra-curricular events.
Excursions include a trip to Boston, hiking Mt. Monadnock and a canoe
expedition. Scholarships available.

We are also planning free Summer Roundups for teachers and students in
Silver City, Espanola, Albuquerque, Las Cruces and Gadsden this summer.
Stay tuned for details.

Sincerely yours,
B, C and D
Betsy, Celia and David

Monday Afternoon Message, March 14, 2011

Spring Break? Hope you are having, had or will have a wonderful spring break.

Sandia Labs and UNM Tours

If you went on the Sandia or UNM tour and would like to write a short
report, please send it to Consult. We think the Challenge community would
like to hear about the two tours.

Teacher Appreciation Nominations

So nominate your teacher sponsor to be recognized at the Awards Day
Ceremony on Tuesday, April 26th in Los Alamos. Send Consult a note on why
you think your teacher should be recognized.

Project Display Board

A display board can be a critical component of your presentation. It is
what people see first; it helps establish the quality of the project. Display
boards can be purchased (at minimal cost) from your local hobby store, or
constructed from many durable materials such as pegboard, cork board,
particle board, or foam board.

There is an award for the individual(s) who design the best display board.
The winning design will also serve as the cover for the publication of the
compiled finalists' reports.

Monday Morning Message, March 7, 2011

Project Evaluations

Today, approximately thirty Challenge participants will be touring Sandia
National Laboratories while another thirty Challenge participants will be
touring the University of New Mexico.

Graphics Poster Contest

Start thinking now about creating a graphical poster to enter into the
contest for next year's logo. See
http://challenge.nm.org/archive/09-10/expo/logo_poster.shtml
for more details. The logos submitted the past few years have been
a little difficult to convert to silk screen masters so you might want
to contact a local company that prints t-shirts to see what they
recommend you do to create a logo for the 2011-2012 Supercomputing
Challenge. Teams will bring the graphics posters to the Expo where
all Challenge participants will vote for the best logo for the next year.

Final Reports due April 6th

Remember, you have less than a month to prepare your final written
report. Start working on it now.

Science Links

Or, take advantage of wind energy when you search the web:
http://www.gigablast.com
It was founded by a New Mexico Tech student.

Sincerely yours,
Betsy, Celia and David for Consult

Monday Morning Message, February 28, 2011

Merry Month of March

There is a little more than five weeks until April 6 when Final Reports
are due. Please take advantage of the comments from the Evaluation judges
and seek help from mentors as you make the next steps towards completing
the projects you began in September or October. Please write to Consult
if you would like additional help. Remember to include your name and team
number when you write.

New Mexico Tech Evaluations

Next Saturday, March 5, is the last opportunity for Evaluations. The
session will be at New Mexico Tech in Socorro. Please write to Consult
if you plan to attend and aren't on the schedule.

Sandia/UNM Tours, March 7th

Signup is complete for the Sandia tour and registration for the UNM
visit closes on Wednesday, the 2nd of March. To register, write to Consult
with the names of those coming, school name and team number(s). The UNM
tour will include the Center for Advanced Research Computing (learn about
high performance computing and high speed networks), the ARTS Lab (home of
Digital Media Garage), lunch with Computer Science, and the afternoon
learning about Engineering programs.

Mentoring/Tutoring - Afternoon of March 6th

Teams who are travelling to Albuquerque for the tours can sign up for
a tutorial Sunday afternoon before the Tours. If you are not planning to
attend a tour but would like help with your project, please write to Consult.

Scholarships for Seniors

The application process will be online and current high school seniors
registered with the Challenge were notified by email of the steps in the
online process (to send their letters and scanned transcripts to Celia Einhorn).
Please write to Consult if you are a senior and haven't received information
about the online process.

Message from a mentor about experiments:

Here is a note Talaya White sent to one of the teams she is mentoring:

"One thing to keep in mind is that you are creating an experiment in
order to find out something you don't know already. Understanding the
difference between an experiment and an illustration is something that a lot
of teams have a hard time with. The best way I've found to think about this
is to ask the questions "Could I find an answer to this question on Google?"
and "Will my model show me anything I didn't know before?" An experiment is
something that generates data (which could be numbers but could also be more
visual, such as groups of infected people in close proximity to each other),
and that data shows you something that you couldn't have proven without it."

Keep up the good work! The Evaluation Judges report that we will see
exciting projects at the Expo in April. We are looking forward to that!

Sincerely yours,
Betsy, Celia and David for Consult

Tuesday Morning Message, February 22, 2011

Computer Wins on 'Jeopardy!': Trivial, It's Not

Last week Watson, an IBM computer, beat a champion human Jeopardy
contestant. Read all about it
here
and find the answers to these questions: Why is the computer named Watson?
And what question did Watson miss?

February Evaluations

Our appreciation goes to our judges and hosts at NNMC and UNM for the
February 19th Evaluations.

Teams in Los Alamos and Melrose, please check the schedule for your
evaluations. If your team has had to miss its evaluation, please write to
Consult to schedule a time at New Mexico Tech on Saturday the 5th of
March.

http://challenge.nm.org/evaluations

Sandia/UNM Tour, March 7th

Today Tuesday, 22 February at NOON is the deadline for signing up
for the Sandia Tour. Please write to sandiatour11 at challenge dot
nm dot org. BEFORE noon with your Name, Date of Birth, City and State
of Birth, School Name, School Address, and Team Number.

For the UNM tour, we just need to know the names of those coming.
Please write to Consult by the 2nd of March with the names of those
coming, school name and team number(s).

Scholarships for Seniors

The application process will be online and current high school
seniors registered with the Challenge were notified by email of the
steps in the online process.

Milestone Alert!

It’s time to double check your calendars and be sure that these
dates are set:
April 6 – Final Reports due
April 25-26 – Expo and Awards Day in Los Alamos

You can find out about these events online at the Challenge web
page and we'll be sending you links and information to help you prepare.
But for now, be sure these are on your calendars.

Sincerely yours,
Betsy, Celia and David for Consult

Monday Morning Message, February 14, 2011

Happy Valentine's Day,

Enjoy your chocolate today! The candy company Mars has approached the Department of Agriculture and IBM in order to
sequence and analyze the cocoa genome, through the use of a supercomputer. What? Cocoa genome? Why would Mars want to see the genome of their cocoa? Check it out!

February Evaluations

Our thanks and appreciation go to our judges and hosts at NMSU and SFCC for the February 12th Evaluations.

Talaya shared that the evaluations at SFCC went well but teams said the judges do ask hard questions. Teams need to pay attention to the judges' suggestions as they will be some of the same judges at the Expo and Finalist Judging.

Sandia/UNM Tour, March 7th

It's time to sign up for the tours of Sandia National Laboratories or UNM.

The following information is needed for every participant for the Sandia Tour:
Name, Date of Birth, City and State of Birth, School Name, School Address,
and Team Number. For the UNM tour, we just need to know the names of
those coming. See the announcements at:
http://challenge.nm.org/archive/10-11/sandiatour

For the Sandia tour, we need to know THIS week, if you would like to attend.

Scholarships for Seniors

The application process is all online and current high school seniors registered with the Challenge will be notified by email of the steps in the online process.

Supercomputing Challenge Announces New Officers

At its November meeting, the Supercomputing Challenge Board of Directors elected new officers. Irene Lee will serve as president and Edward Angel as vice president. David Kratzer and Mike Topliff will continue to serve as secretary and treasurer, respectively.

Irene Lee is the Principal Investigator and Program Director for Santa Fe Institute's Project GUTS: Growing Up Thinking Scientifically and GUTS y Girls Previously, she designed and programmed educational and video games for Electronic Arts and Theatrix Interactive/Berkeley Learning Technologies and worked in informal education as a science and technology specialist within out of school time programs. Irene is the past president of the Swarm Development Group and serves on the board of directors of the Santa Fe Science Initiative and the Santa Fe Complex. She received her BA in Pure Mathematics from the University of Chicago and her EdM in Technology in Education from Harvard University Graduate School of Education.

Edward Angel is Professor Emeritus of Computer Science at the University of New Mexico. He is the Founding Director of the Art, Research, Technology and
Science Laboratory (ARTS Lab) at UNM. He is the first UNM Presidential Teaching Fellow. He also serves as Chairman of the Board of the Santa Fe Complex
(sfcomplex.org) and on the Governor's Council on Film and Media Industries. He is co-PI of the NSF Partnership for Innovation grant "A Consortium for
Fulldome Development," a project involving UNM, the Santa Fe Complex and the Institute of American Indian Arts. He received a BS in Engineering from the
California Institute of Technology and a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California.

Is There An App for that?

Joshua Thorp, Challenge Alumni, mentor, judge and facilitator, and Stephen Guerin, mentor, judge and facilitator, developers from the Santa Fe Complex, "a civic-minded technology and design think tank in New Mexico", have helped develop a new app, called Street Bump," which would automatically report potholes to the city by sensing when a car has hit a bump. The app, in development, would be sensitive enough to identify cracks and divots, alerting Boston city officials to pavement problems before they become car-crunching craters." For more info,
click here. Way to go, friends!

Sincerely yours,
Betsy, Celia and David for Consult

Monday Morning Message, February 7, 2011

Good Day,

Hope you are staying warm. Rather amazing that NM had the coldest temperatures in the nation last week.

Please check the schedules at
http://challenge.nm.org/evaluations/schedule.shtml
and contact Consult if you have difficulty with your assigned time or location. The schedules are subject to change so please check back during the week of your evaluation for last minute changes.

This Saturday, Project Evaluations will be held at NMSU for teams from Deming, Hatch and Las Cruces,
and at SFCC for teams in Santa Fe.

TechGYRLS

The YWCA is now accepting registration for residential TechGYRLS camp TNT (Teens for New Technology). Camp is for any girl ages 9-14 and takes place in Tijeras at the YWCA Pinon Canyon Center, behind the Sandia Ranger's Station. This year, the YWCA has expanded to four separate weeks of instruction. Each week has a different theme. June 5-11 "Me and My Robot" June 12-18 "Science of Sports" June 19-25 "Film and Technology" and June 26- July 3rd "Technology and the planet". 1 week costs $350, 2 weeks $600, 3 weeks $900 and all 4 weeks is $1,000. There are limited scholarships available to those who can demonstrate need.

If you would like to register, know a student who could benefit from a scholarship, or would like to volunteer at camp please contact Youth Director, Melanie Madrid at (505)254-9922 Ext 105 or at mmadrid @ ywca-nm.org

Johns Hopkins University Center for Advanced Modeling in the Social, Behavioral and Health Sciences brings the power of computer-based simulation to bear on a host of real-world hardships, such as disease, economic turbulence and catastrophic disasters. Agent-based models, or ABMs, are "highly visual and spatially realistic. Read more by clicking on heading link.

Send any questions about evaluations, the tour, your project to Consult
and we will try to get back to you asap.

Sandia/UNM Tours-March 7th

We have settled on March 7th as the date for the tours. We'll
be asking for commitments soon so that we can plan the details.

Supercomputing in Plain English class

Checkout the "Tyranny of the Storage Hierarchy" lecture in tomorrow's
SiPE lecture from Oklahoma University.
When: Tuesdays 1:00-2:00pm Mountain.
See: http://www.oscer.ou.edu/education.php for details.
There is a chance this talk might be postponed due to bad weather.

US Cyber Challenge

The Supercomputing Challenge encourages its participants to get
involved with other programs and events so that you can find
opportunities that interest you. Check out the video below about
the US Cyber Challenge (http://www.uscyberchallenge.org).

Past Challenge Participant, Future Interplanetary Scientist?

Science Link

Timeline: America's Space Programhttp://www.npr.org/2011/01/26/4748778/timeline-americas-space-program
Click on the dots under the decades to view the events.
With the 25th anniversary of the explosion of the Challenger, we would like
to remember Christa McAullife's legacy, her passion being teaching and
she hoped to bring education to a new level through her lessons from
space. A quarter century after the Challenger exploded, lessons from
the tragedy continue
to influence NASA's decisions.

Sincerely yours,
Betsy, Celia and David for Consult

Monday Morning Message, January 24, 2011

January Peer Reviews

February Project Evaluations

The schedule has been posted for the February Project Evaluations.
See: http://www.challenge.nm.org/evaluations and
http://www.challenge.nm.org/evaluations/schedule.shtml
to find when and where your team has been assigned to present.
Let Consult know if you need to change your scheduled time.
We expect each team to present their project and judges will
be expecting to listen and comment on the presentations.
Don't stand them up by being a no-show! They are there to help
you and be your advocates come April.

Supercomputing in Plain English class

Take advantage of a FREE online course in Supercomputing:
This semester, Oklahoma University is again going to run their
"Supercomputing in Plain English" (SiPE) workshop series.
When: Tuesdays 1:00-2:00pm Mountain starting Tue Jan 25.
See: http://www.oscer.ou.edu/education.php
for details. You can watch it via QuickTime Broadcaster or EVO.
See the above website for details. Slides will be posted before the
class which you can download and use to follow along. If you
miss a live session, the video of it can be watched at a later
time. Let us know if you participate.

March tours of Sandia and UNM

We're still deciding on March 7th or March 14th for tours of Sandia Laboratories
and the University of New Mexico. Teams that participate in the February Project
Evaluations are eligible to participate. More details will soon be posted at
http://www.challenge.nm.org/archive/10-11/sandiatour

Science Link

Girls, are you inventive? An MIT survey thinks so, and we need YOU to prove it!

Young women in the United States represent an untapped group of potential inventors,
according to the 2011 Lemelson-MIT Invention Index. The latest gauge on the perceptions
of invention and innovation focuses on people between the ages of 16 and 25, and shows
that women have many characteristics necessary to become inventors. The characteristic
women most associate with inventors is creativity, and while 71 percent said they were
creative, only 27 percent said they were inventive. Among men, 66 percent said they
were creative and 39 percent said they were inventive. Also, 42 percent of women said
math and science were their favorite subjects in school, compared with 53 percent for
men, and 35 percent said they have a family member working in science, technology,
engineering, or math (STEM). The index shows that women have an innate interest in
inventive fields, but less than 10 percent are pursuing STEM degrees. "This country
needs innovative new programs to stimulate the interest of young men and women in
STEM and to challenge them to use their intellect and creativity to invent solutions
to some of the world's most pressing problems," says Chad Mirkin, a member of the U.S.
President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. "Women have an enormous
amount to offer in this regard, but aren't currently pursuing science or technology
fields at a high enough rate."

Sincerely yours,
Betsy, Celia and David for Consult

Tuesday Morning Message, January 18, 2011

News from Dona Ana County

On Saturday, January 15, at Dona Ana County Community College in Las
Cruces, 25 GUTS Club and Supercomputing Challenge teachers participated
in an all day workshop to prepare for the spring Climate Change curricula
for Project GUTS. Team sponsors from Picacho Middle School (Las Cruces)
and Red Mountain Middle School (Deming) reviewed their Challenge team
progress with the parent leader of the Las Cruces-Onate-Mayfield team.
This group represents each high school in Las Cruces and all of the
middle schools in Gadsden Unified and Las Cruces School Districts.
Many of them attended the Kickoff and will be coming to Los Alamos in
April. The Challenge teams will be going to NMSU for their February 12
Evaluation.

And that brings us to Evaluations statewide

Evaluations schedules are being prepared for NMSU, NMCC, UNM, SFCC,
NMHU and New Mexico Tech. If your team is near one of these universities,
you will be scheduled at that site for a one-half hour evaluations. This
is a key Challenge year milestone. If you didn't see last week's message,
please review the information at
http://challenge.nm.org/evaluations.
It is important to note that it is best if all team member can attend.
Note, too, that the schedule at each site is subject to change to meet
the scheduling needs of teams. If your team cannot attend the Evaluation
at the college nearest you, you can write to Consult and ask to be scheduled
at another university on a different Saturday. Consult can almost always
find a date and place for your team to present its work. Again, this is one
of our important milestones.

Sandia - UNM Tours

Planning continues for the Tours for March 7 or 14th. Stay tuned as the
date and schedules are finalized.

Fractal Fridays

If you haven't ever attended that First Friday Fractals at the NM Natural
History Museum, the first Friday of every month, you have a treat in store.
These events are held at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History in
Albuquerque. What are fractals? Check it out at
http://fractalfoundation.org.
This beautiful geometry is science and mathematics and art, too. Tickets for
First Friday Fractals are available only online and in advance at:
http://fractalfoundation.org/fractal-shows/first-friday-fractals/.

Google Scholarships*

Dr. Anita Borg devoted her adult life to revolutionizing the way we think
about technology and dismantling barriers that keep women and minorities from
entering computing and technology fields. Her combination of technical expertise
and fearless vision continues to inspire and motivate countless women to become
active participants and leaders in creating technology.

In her honor, Google is proud to honor Anita's memory and support women in
technology with the Google Anita Borg Memorial Scholarship. Google hopes to
encourage women to excel in computing and technology and become active role
models and leaders in the field.

Read more about this scholarship and other Google scholarships at
http://www.google.com/anitaborg.
Recipients also will attend a 2-3 day retreat at Google (which is an amazingly
cool and fabulous opportunity!).

*Thanks to Carl Bogardus at Chaparral Middle School for this link.

Climate Change and Sustainability

This article is from the National Science Foundation Media Gallery. We think
you will find this an interesting example of a resilient people coping with
climate change.

A winter camp of nomadic Nenets in the forest-tundra zone near Nadym,
Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug. Tent (chum) coverings are made of reindeer skins
and some sledges are decorated with colorful textiles. These nomadic, pastoral
herders have been in western Siberia, Russian, for over a thousand years, but
changes such as industrial development, climate change and socio-economic
upheaval may threaten their lifestyle. [Image 1 of 5 related images. See
Image 2.]

More about this Image
The Nenets have been in the area for over a thousand years, but more recently,
they have faced threats to their lifestyle due to warming temperatures (average
temperatures in the region have increased by 1-2 degrees Celsius over the past
30 years), socioeconomic upheaval, and the oil and gas industry, which has
brought workers and infrastructure--such as roads and pipelines, and degradation
to rivers and lakes. In response to these changes, the Nenet have adjusted their
reindeer migration routes and timing, avoid disturbed and degraded areas, and are
developing new economic practices and social interaction.

Continue your good work. We look forward to seeing you in February.
Betsy, Celia and David for the Consult Team

Monday Morning Message, January 10, 2011

Thank you to review team!

Challenge teams and Consult are very appreciative
of the time and care reviewers have taken to give
teams thoughtful feedback on the work reflected
in Interim reports. Several team have written
thank you notes to reviewer noting how they will
take advantage of the suggestions the reviewers
have made. If you have received your review
please do not procrastinate in sending an
acknowledgment to your reviewer. And remember,
too, that the reviewers are judges and will be
interested in seeing at the Evaluations in
February how you have taken advantage of the
assessments of your Interim reports.

February Evaluations

Please keep an eye on the schedule of
Evaluations.
You will be assigned to a university campus as
near to your school as possible for your team's
Evaluation. If the date is in conflict with
another activity and you will be unable to
attend, please write to Consult as soon as
possible so that your schedule can be changed.

Team members will make an oral presentation of
approximately 20 minutes with 10 minutes for
questions and answers, not to exceed 30 minutes,
to a team of Supercomputing Challenge judges so
that the judges can better understand the
project, review progress and offer advice and
direction on overcoming obstacles or finding additional resources.

NOTE: All team members do not have to be present
- but it is highly recommended that they be there if not competing elsewhere.

Sandia-UNM Engineering and Computing Tours - Save the Date!

Plans are underway for teams who have turned in
Interim reports and attended an Evaluation to
attend a tour at Sandia National Lab or the
University of New Mexico. The Tours will held on
Monday, March 7. Stay tuned for details as the schedule develops.

ThinkQuest

The Challenge encourages participants to take
advantage of other competitions with their
projects. Take a look at the
ThinkQuest
International Competition 2011. The submission
deadline is just after the Challenge Expo next
April. Teams can choose any problem to solve and
can leverage existing schoolwork across a broad
range of curricula, including Writing, Social
Studies, Civics, History, Science, Mathematics,
Art, and Technology/ICT.
See
Entry
Examples for ideas. All entries must be submitted in English.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

This week we remember and honor Dr King. Here
are some of his thoughts on science and religion:

The two are not rivals. They are complementary.
Science keeps religion from sinking into the
valley of crippling irrationalism and paralyzing
obscurantism. Religion prevents science from
falling into the marsh of obsolete materialism and moral nihilism."

Monday Morning Message, January 3, 2011

Happy New Year,

Don't be driven in 2000 and eleven, but do meet all your Challenge milestones.

Recommended January Peer Review
Practice your presentation in front of your
peers, parents, school board, etc. Team 1, a
multi school team in Santa Fe, presented at the
Santa Fe Complex this past week so that
scientists could ask hard questions and give them
feedback not only on the project itself, but on
their presentation and explanations.

Interim Reports

You should receive online feedback on your report
by Monday, the 10th. If you have not, please
write to consult @ challenge.nm.org
(There are spaces in there to prevent spam).

Hispanic Cultural Fund at UNM

The Kick-Off

Beginning in the summer, approximately 100 high
school students will experience a university
campus for a four-day, three-night college
empowerment program where students will learn to
overcome both real and perceived barriers to
college access. The students will participate in
college and career workshops, connect with local
Hispanic professionals, meet college admissions
officers, interact with near-peer mentors, listen
to inspirational speakers, and compete for scholarships.

Launched in 1993, the Hispanic College Fund
scholarship program identifies the nation's most
promising Hispanic college students and rewards
their academic achievement with educational
scholarships. As of 2010, the Hispanic College
Fund has awarded nearly $15 million in
scholarships to over 5,400 students. The Hispanic
College Fund is accepting scholarship
applications now through March 1, 2011 for the
2011-2012 academic year. Scholarships range from $500 - $10,000.

"Before doing these experiments we did not really
think a lot about bees and how they are as smart
as us. We also did not think about the fact that
without bees we would not survive, because bees
keep the flowers going. So it is important to
understand bees. We discovered how fun it was to
train bees. This is also cool because you do not
get to train bees everyday. We like bees. Science
is cool and fun because you get to do stuff that
no one has ever done before. (Bees-seem to-think!)"

"A group of British schoolchildren may be the
youngest scientists ever to have their work
published in a peer-reviewed journal. In a new
paper in Biology Letters, children from...

Start thinking about your final report now. Ask
your English teacher for extra credit for writing a technical paper.
Ask her if she will help you edit. Read your
paper out loud as you are working on
it. Consider submitting your final report to a
peer-reviewed journal. Write to Consult for details.

Monday Morning Message, December 13, 2010

Interim Reports

You will be receiving an online response to your interim report sometime
before January 10th. Please respond to your reviewer and pay attention to
her advice.

Contests to Consider

It is good to leverage the work you do with the Challenge with other contests.
Take your project and use it in the science fair or in another venue.

Congrats to Holden Hyer, Bernalillo sophomore who received a $2,000.00
scholarship/savings bonds for "The Thing To Do," an essay on a current issue.
His teacher, Valerie Salas, won $100 also from Sandia National Labs.

Think Quest International Competition 2011

Students: Work with friends to solve a problem and share your idea with the world. Are you up for the challenge? Explore the steps below to learn more:

Upcoming Dates

GUTS News

A roundtable discussion and a workshop were held at Dona Ana Community College on
Friday, December 10th. More than 100 teachers and students from the Gadsden and Las
Cruces attended. Another roundtable took place in Santa Fe at the Santa Fe Community
College on the 11th. Both groups observed Computer Science Education Week.

On behalf of our entire community, Consult, judges, mentors, and facilitators, we
wish you a safe vacation and holiday season and know you will come back in 2011 ready
to complete our academic marathon.

Sincerely yours,
Betsy, Celia and David

Monday Morning Message, December 6, 2010

Happy Computer Science Education Week,

You will be getting daily suggestions for computer science videos
and audio announcements to share with your schools. Please let us
know how that is going! Have a discussion with your principal,
other students and teachers about how schools would run without computers.

We see you as the creators of IT (Information Technology) not
just the consumers. Creators are respected as they provide progress
and pleasure to the rest of humanity. The whole process of creating
brings progress and wealth to society. Include your ideas about
technology in your discussion of Computer Science Week with your
educational community.

Interim Reports

Being in the Challenge gives you project and time management experience.
An important milestone is Friday, December 10th, when your Interim Report
is due. We hear that St. Mike's in Santa Fe has theirs completed but not
submitted yet! Kudos to them and we know that they will be posting it to
the site this week:
http://www.challenge.nm.org/interims

Project GUTS News

Students from Edgewood Elementary School and Jackson Middle School in
Albuquerque met for a Roundtable at the New Mexico Natural History Museum.
They participated in activities with the Climate Change Educator in addition
to presenting projects. Student reporters from Jackson will be sending in a
report shortly.

GUTS y Girls is a science, technology, math and engineering (STEM) program
for 6th-8th grade girls in New Mexico. It is currently being implemented in
Santa Fe. GUTS y Girls was designed to engage "gutsy" girls in exciting
technology-based learning experiences that expose them to and prepare them
for future careers in STEM and information and communication technologies (ICT).
Any questions about the program, please email gutsygirls AT santafe.edu

Expanding Your Horizons

A conference to motivate young women in science and mathematics will be
held Saturday, Jan 29th, 8 - 1 at CNM for girls grades 5 -9. See the
EYH
web page and registration information at http://nmnwse.org/ceyh .
Later on in 2011, there will be similar conferences in Silver, Santa Fe and
Los Alamos.

Science Link

Scientists use NM CAC's Encanto supercomputer to unravel ribosome mystery.
"Theoretical biologists at Los Alamos National Laboratory have used a New
Mexico supercomputer to aid an international research team in untangling
another mystery related to ribosomes - those enigmatic jumbles of molecules
that are the protein factories of living cells."
Read about it at: http://www.lanl.gov/news/releases/ribosomes_news_release.html

Summer Opportunities

It is not too early to think about what you will be doing next summer.
There are some great opportunities out there for you. Go to
http://www.challenge.nm.org/resources/#summer_programs.
Some have early deadlines, like the Research Science Institute's January
14th deadline, so check them out and start applying.

We are looking forward to reading your Interim Reports.

Sincerely,
Betsy, Celia and David for Consult

Monday Morning Message, November 29, 2010

Greetings!

Interim Reports

We are looking forward to reading your reports. They are due on or before next
Friday, 10 December 2010. However, we will be happy to see them before that
deadline. The Interim Report guidelines are at
http://challenge.nm.org/interims/interim_guidelines.shtml
where there is an example of a thorough Interim Report. We will ask a scientist
to review your Interim Report just as we asked them to review proposals in October.
The more complete your Interim Report, the better able the scientist will be to
make helpful comments about your work. To see the range of Reports submitted last
year, you can go to
http://mode.lanl.k12.nm.us/view_interims0910.php.

Please include the correctly-spelled names of everyone on the team. This helps
us double-check that we have the right team names associated with your team. It
is ok if your team has changed since the Proposal was submitted.

Competitions!

Siemens We Can Change the World Challenge

Who - K - 12 students
What - Students become Agents of Change and identify and address environmental issues
by creating a replicable solution using Web-based curriculum tools powered by Discovery Education
Deadline - March 31
Sponsors - Siemens
More Info - www.wecanchange.com

For Challenge Students Over 16: ImagineCup

Supercomputing like competition from Microsoft
Register at http://bit.ly/nmtcup (preferably by December 1st)

He states, "I believe this would be a great opportunity for the students to take
their work to a national+ level, or even try another category other than programming
(they have many divisions including game programming, IT, digital media, etc.). If
they win the national competition Microsoft will fly them full-ride to internationals
(this year in NYC). This would be for this coming spring's competition. I believe
this would not only encourage more teams to finish the challenge, but also give
them incentive to compete with students from other states."

It is a great idea to leverage your Challenge project and use it for Science
Fair, Science Olympiads, ImagineCup, research paper for English class, etc.

Climate Change Conference in Cancun

This week the United Nations is convening scientists and climate change citizen
scientists from around the world to meet to enact new international treaties.
Here is a New York Times article that outlines some of the important issues,
including whether or not poorer countries should have to meet the same standards
as big-power countries.
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/science/topics/globalwarming/index.html .
For more information, you can read about the Conference in Wikipedia and at the UN
pages. In fact, some of the meetings will be web cast.
http://unfccc.int/2860.php

We hope this is a good week for all of you. Remember, if you need help with
your Interim Report, let us know!

Betsy, Celia and David, for Consult @ challenge.nm.org

Monday Morning Message, November 22, 2010

Thanksgiving Week

We hope you will be enjoying the holidays with family and friends. We
are grateful for your participation in the Challenge and are hearing
about your work through your correspondence or visits to your schools.
We are looking forward to seeing your interim reports on the 10th of
December. Stay in touch with us if you need help in the next couple
of weeks.

For Challenge Students Over 16: ImagineCup

Supercomputing like competition from Microsoft
Register at http://bit.ly/nmtcup (preferably by December 1st)

He states, "I believe this would be a great opportunity for the students
to take their work to a national+ level, or even try another category
other than programming (they have many divisions including
game programming, IT, digital media, etc.). If they win the national
competition Microsoft will fly them full-ride to internationals (this year
in NYC). This would be for this coming spring's competition. I believe
this would not only encourage more teams to finish the challenge, but
also give them incentive to compete with students from other states."

It is a great idea to leverage your Challenge project and use it for Science
Fair, Science Olympiads, ImagineCup, research paper for English class,
etc.

Climate Change News from "New Scientist"

"Weakening ice sheet could protect itself from the sea"
18:00 21 November 2010 by Michael Marshall

"Glaciologists have long worried that the West Antarctic ice sheet will
collapse over the next few centuries, raising sea levels dramatically.
At present the ice sheet is grounded on underwater islands, which
insulate some of the ice from the melting effect of the seawater upon
which the rest of the sheet floats. But because the ice has started
to melt because of climate change, more water is probably flowing
underneath the sheet over the surface of the islands, accelerating its
destruction.

The ice sheet has a defence mechanism, however. As it melts, sea
levels around it will fall, say Natalya Gomez and Jerry Mitrovica of
Harvard University and colleagues. That is counterintuitive, because
the ice sheet will release extra water into the sea - but because the
mass of ice has shrunk, its gravitational pull on the seawater will be
weaker. Also, the bedrock will rise up as the weight of ice on it drops."

Monday Morning Message, November 15, 2010

Happy Mid November,

Can you believe it? It is almost Thanksgiving time. We are thankful
for each and every one of you!

First Computer Programmer

Sara Hartse from Desert Academy writes:
Do you know about Ada Byron Lovelace (1815-1852), daughter of the
English poet Lord Byron? Her mother so firmly disliked him that she
steered Ada away from literature and the humanities and encouraged
her to become highly educated in science and mathematics. Starting
when she was 17, Ada worked closely with Charles Babbage on his
"Difference Engine" and "Analytical Machine." She worked a series of
notes expressing, for the first time, the basics of computer programming.

She was a pretty awesome person. If Babbage created the first
computer, then she was the first computer programmer.

School Visits

We will be checking with all new schools to see if they would like to
have a visit this fall. Other schools, please let us know if you are
interested in a visit. Betsy Frederick, Consult, will be down in the
Las Cruces/Gadsden/Deming area this week. And Nick Bennett, also
from Consult, will be in the Artesia/Melrose neighborhoods. We are
planning a visit to Farmington, some schools in Santa Fe and Las Vegas shortly.

Challenge Archives and Search

We have many past projects in our archives and we suggest that you
utilize the search function of our web page to find any project
similar to yours. The Archives are in the gray middle band under the
header. The search function is on the left hand side of the gray
band of the header.

Interim Reports

Your progress report is due in less than one month, December 10th,
before you go on winter break.
The interim report should include the following information:

the definition of the problem,

your plan for solving the problem computationally,

a description of the progress you have made up to this time,

the results you expect to get,

and at least five citations of information you have referenced.

Mentors

And from Nick:
Every year, we hear complaints from students and teachers, along the
lines of "Well, we asked X to be our mentor, and they agreed, but we
never heard from them after that." Unfortunately, there are times
when a mentor does drop out of communication; ultimately, however,
it's the team's responsibility to get in touch with the mentor, or to
ask for help from Consult if someone who agreed to be a mentor is
unresponsive. For example, even if a mentor has already agreed to
help a team - e.g. if a team asked one of the scientists or
instructors at the kickoff to be a mentor, and that person agreed -
it's still the responsibility of the team to get in touch with that mentor now.

Climate Change

Resource from Project GUTS Science Pagehttp://www.worldwildlife.org/climate/adaptation/species-impacts.html
"Climate change is placing immense pressure on the natural world,
changing ecosystems and helping to drive a rising wave of extinctions
that could end in the disappearance of one out of every four animal
and plant species on the planet within the lifetimes of our children
or grandchildren."

Supercomputing Challenge Board of Directors Announces Election of New Officers

Irene Lee, Executive Director of Project GUTS, is our new President,
and Ed Angel, President of the Board of the Santa Fe Complex, is the
Vice-President. The Board acknowledges with gratitude the leadership
of Bill Blackler, past President and Ron Davis, outgoing
Vice-President. They remain on the Board to continue their service
focused in fund-raising work. Thank you to Bill and Ron and
congratulations to Irene and Ed. You will be seeing profiles of
these leaders in upcoming issues of the MMM.

So What is on Those Neat Flash Drives from the Kickoff?

Thanks to Nick Bennett, at this year's kickoff in Socorro, USB flash
drives were handed out to all the attendees. Some of the classes used
software installed on the flash drive, but some of you might not have
had the chance to see what's there. For those who haven't yet erased
them, here's a guide to the contents. It is attached here and will
soon be on the Challenge web page on the kickoff.

USB Flash Drives

At this year's kickoff in Socorro, USB flash drives were handed out
to all the attendees. Some of the classes used software installed on
the flash drive, but some of you might not have had the chance to see
what's there. For those who haven't yet erased them, here's a guide
to the contents.

Software Installers

Installers for the following free (and in some cases, open source)
software packages are included in the \Documents\Installers directory
of the flash drive. (All of the installers are for use with Windows,
but most of the programs are available for other platforms as well.)

Open source integrated development environment (IDE) for programming
in Java and other languages. This installer doesn't include the
support modules for PHP, C/C++, Python, or Ruby, but they can be
downloaded and installed on demand.

Open source Java-based environment with automatic code-wrapping
features for an easy learning curve, and simple access to powerful 2D
and 3D graphics libraries. This package actually isn't an installer,
but a compressed archive containing the Processing program directory,
which can be copied to the desired location manually.

PortableApps.com

In some computing environments, including many schools, most users
don't have sufficient privileges to install new software on the
computers. Where these environments include Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7,
PortableApps.com can be a lifesaver. This
is an open source platform for running Windows applications from a
USB flash drive, without the need to install the software on the
target computer.

The flash drives distributed at the kickoff include a
PortableApps.com configuration, with several software tools
installed. To access PortableApps.com, open the flash drive in the
Windows explorer and double-click StartPortableApps.exe. A menu of of
the following programs will appear (accessible thereafter via an icon
in the Windows system tray).

Course Materials

Finally, the materials used for some of the kickoff classes are
included on the flash drive. Due to production deadlines for the
drives themselves, only a few of the courses are represented, and
some of the materials on the flash drive aren't quite the same
versions presented in the courses.

\Documents\Algorithms

Presentation, handouts, and code used in the paired-language
Java/Python classes.

\Documents\Bugs

Presentation and code for the class on debugging tools and techniques.

\Documents\Optimization

Presentation and code for the class on mathematical optimization techniques.

\Documents\ShallowWater

Presentation and code for the class on the shallow water equations
and their implementations in C, Java, and MatLab.

Monday Morning Message, November 8, 2010

Challenge Community,

School Visits

Believe it or not, we are already in the third phase of the Challenge year.
Challenge Representatives will, upon request from students and/or teachers,
visit teams at their respective schools to address any issues, answer questions.
If it can be arranged, the Challenge representative would like to meet with the
Principal or Headmaster.

Congratulations Are In Order

Barbara Marquez, Challenge student at Bernalillo High School won a scholarship
from the NMTC. (New Mexico Technology Council).
Education is a key focus of the
New Mexico Technology Council. In recognition of the vital need for excellent
technology education, NMTC and its sponsors will award scholarships to young
women in the state of New Mexico pursuing a degree in an information technology
(IT) field. Way to go, Barbara!

First Six Programmers

The first six programmers of the first electronic, digital, general-purpose
computer, ENIAC, were all women, four of whom had majored in mathematics in college.
The profiles of these women - Kathleen McNulty Mauchly Antonelli, Jean Jennings Bartik,
Frances Snyder Holberton, Marlyn Wescoff Meltzer, Frances Bilas Spence, and Ruth
Lichterman Teitelbaum - can be found on the website at the Women in Technology International
Hall of Fame, [ http://www.witi.com/center/witimuseum/halloffame/1997/eniac.php ]
along with links to additional information about the women and a video from their
induction in the Hall of Fame. Each woman also has an entry on Wikipedia.
(Thanks to Mr. G, in Artesia.)

Mandelbrot Tribute

Remember that Cleve Moler mentioned Benoit Mandelbrot's passing at the Kickoff
Conference. There is a new tribute to Mandelbrot on the Shodor site:
http://www.shodor.org/featured/MandelbrotTribute
with links to interactive tools for exploring fractals.

Consult at challenge dot nm dot org
Use and amuse us at Consult. Ask for a visit. Get suggestions for a mentor.
Send us some information for the MMM. Ask about the
research process. Send us kudos, challenges and suggestions.

Sincerely yours,
Betsy, Celia and David

Monday Morning Message, November 1, 2010

Supercomputing News

A Chinese research center has announced it has built the fastest supercomputer.
Tianhe-1A boasts a speed of 2.5 petaflops (2,500 trillion calculations per second).
There will be more news about this in the media this week as the Top 500 list of
fastest supercomputers is updated. (New York Times, 28 October 10:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/28/technology/28compute.html)

Proposal Reviews

Have you received a review of your proposal? If you have, be sure to send a
thank-you note and it would be helpful if you sent a copy to consult at challenge.nm.org
so that we can track progress. Be sure to write to consult if you haven't received a
review. If you haven't gotten a review, have you submitted a proposal? We're still
expecting some more to be posted at:
http://www.challenge.nm.org/proposals

Got Mentors?

Most of you who have submitted proposals have received an email review from one of the
scientists in the Challenge community. The next step is to find a mentor. Challenge teams
report that mentors are very helpful to them as they develop their projects. You may decide
after you get going and understand how you are going to develop your model that you need a
mentor to help with programming. And finally, you may want a mentor to help with writing.

Who are the mentors? A mentor may be someone you discovered while you were starting your
research or it may be someone recommended to you by a scientist you met at the Kickoff. Or
it may be a friend who had got you interested in your topic. Or you may need to find a mentor.

A good place to start looking for a mentor is on the Challenge web page. You can start
at the home page http://challenge.nm.org and click on
the link at the TOP of the page that says Resources. Resources is chock full of useful links.
Scroll down to Consulting-Mentors. You will see the Challenge Mentor Database. These scientists
have offered to help teams with different aspects of their projects. As you can see, there are
links to all kinds of topics. You'll also see the names of the scientists and their email addresses.

Mentor-Consultants will answer questions by email and may be available to spend more time with
you online or by telephone and in some cases can even meet with you if they are nearby. You and
your mentor(s) will be able to figure that out.

It is really important in the first message you send a mentor to identify yourself and to be
very clear what it is you are asking. Be polite and write complete sentences. You might want to
include sentences from your proposal. Be sure to give your name, your grade, and your school.
The clearer your question, the better the mentor will be able to understand what you are asking.

And always, remember to write back to the mentor and thank him/her for the help. Write to
Consult if you need more help: consult at challenge.nm.org.

Electrical and Computer Engineering at UNM

This Wednesday afternoon, 4 November 2010, the ECE Department will hold an Open House from 4-7 PM.
Students who register ahead of time and attend, are eligible to win a newPod Nano. Lots of good
information and refreshments, too. To register:
http://excel.ece.unm.edu/welcome

Monday Morning Message, October 25, 2010

Harvest and Hunters Moons

Proposals

Several more proposals were posted this week and we look forward
to seeing the rest this week. Scientists are standing by ready to review your
proposal so that you can make good progress by mid-December when the interim reports
are due. If you have received a review from a scientist, remember to write back to
thank them. If something isn't clear in what he or she said, you can write back or
send a message to Consult: consult at challenge.nm.org.

First Steps

Research is an important part of your work at this stage of planning and
preparation. Research can be web-based but talking with an expert can be useful,
too. The Challenge Resource page has some good links to help you with your
research. http://challenge.nm.org/resources has great links to climate change
topics AND to good research information. Remember to keep track of the websites
you visit so that you can refer to them in your reports. You'll need the citation
references for the Interim report as well as later for the Final Report.

As soon as you have a proposal up , we will have one of our scientists or
mentors email you some feedback on the proposal.
Please reply to them and to the ideas that they give you.

Intern Opportunity

Work with Stephen Guerin, Santa Fe Complex, and David Gutlzer, UNM on a climate
change model to be run on the simtable at a new installation at the NM History
Museum.

The exhibit will be about the NM watershed using large databases and working
with the historical movement of people based on climate change. Work with snow
depth and precipitation, tree rings correlated with stream flow, mitigation and
demographics.

Class Materials

Kickoff Pictures

Watch the Kickoff page, http://www.challenge.nm.org/kickoff, this week for the link to Pictures to become hot. Use those pictures
to promote your participants in the Supercomputing Challenge and Project GUTS.

For Teachers

SSP launches new national middle school program with Broadcom

This would be an interesting place to take a well done middle school
Challenge/GUTS project.
Broadcom Masters Competition as announced by Society for Science & the Public:

"In 2000, the National Science Foundation began funding graduate students who also wanted to help out elementary and secondary school teachers in the classroom. A novel idea at the time, the NSF Graduate STEM Fellows in K-12 Education Program is now an established part of the foundation's $900 million portfolio aimed at raising the quality of U.S. math and science education. But it's taken a decade for NSF officials to formally acknowledge that improving science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education is a legitimate research activity for a graduate student. "
http://news.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2010/10/nsf-graduate-fellowships-now.html

Looking forward to an exciting and rewarding 21st year,
Betsy, Celia and David

Tuesday Morning Message, October 12, 2010

Countdown to the Kickoff

Four more days til we will meet the majority of you at the Fidel Center
at New Mexico Tech.
See you Saturday between 10 - 12 for Registration.
Buses will park by the Macey Center since there is construction near Fidel.

Registration in Fidel Center

Teachers need to go to tall registration tables to get name tags and bags.

Students need to get a t-shirt designed this year by a team from Artesia High,
a pre-loaded flash drive and a bag donated by New Mexico Tech. Your flash drive
will be pre-loaded with Challenge software drive and class materials that can be
run from the flash. Thanks go to Nick Bennett for this indispensable addition
to the kickoff.

Your bag is your admittance to meals and electives, so
keep it with you at all times.

After you pick up your name tag from your teacher, you will get an individual
and team picture taken. The individual pictures will be used at the Expo
Celebration in April at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The team picture is
for your local community and school paper and your yearbook.

You will sign a users' agreement and receive a password for the computer
systems at Tech. Keep this password in a safe place as you will need to use
it all weekend.

You will pick up an individual schedule coordinated to your math level.

You will sign up for an elective, for Saturday night, from 7:45 - 9:15

Classes

You will be having six classes specific to your math level. Three or four
of them will be hands-on in a computer lab. Some of your classes will include
a parallel processing activity, a data analysis hour, visualization, etc. We
look at the keynote and the electives as classes also. So that will be eight
classes in a 24 hour period. We are excited about the range of classes this
year.

Electives

You will get to pick from these electives at registration. The sign up
will be "first come first served." Check out the links to see some descriptions.

Bring

The weather in Socorro ranges from 75 - 40 degrees, so bring a jacket for the
evening. It is always a great idea to pack your good manners whenever you travel.

Proposals

Challenge teams need to have a proposal outlining their work for this Challenge
year. We have only 12 submitted. By the end of the Kickoff, we hope to have 78 more! So come with your ideas written up so that you can work on submitting your proposal during the Kickoff. Scientists will be available to talk with you about your project.

Opportunity

Intern with Two Scientists

Work with Stephen Guerin, Santa Fe Complex, and David Gutlzer, UNM on a climate
change model to be run on the simtable at a new installation at the NM History
Museum.

The exhibit will be about the NM watershed using large databases and working
with the historical movement of people based on climate change. Work with snow
depth and precipitation, tree rings correlated with stream flow, mitigation and
demographics.

Please write to consult at challenge.nm.org if you are interested.

Write to Consult with any questions.

Can't wait to see you!
Betsy, Celia, and David

Monday Morning Message, October 4, 2010

Happy October,

Around ABQ, this time of year brings a myriad of hot air balloons and
breakfast burritos with fresh Hatch chile!

Milestones

We are getting close to our kickoff at New Mexico Tech, Saturday, October 16th
and Sunday, the 17th in Socorro.

Kickoff

The current housing lists are located at
http://www.challenge.nm.org/kickoff
Please check to make sure you are on one of the lists and let us know if any changes
need to be made. Please make sure any chaperone or bus driver is listed as well.
The Challenge will cover the cost of the rooms, which includes breakfast on Sunday
morning.
Here is a big shout out to David for all the work he puts into organizing our housing.

When you travel with a group from your school, you need to remember that you are
representing your school and in this case, the Challenge too. This is important on
campus at New Mexico Tech and at the hotels in Socorro. We have had little trouble
with students' behavior at our 20 past kickoffs, but we do want you to know that we
have called a few parents to come pick up their students if they were behaving
inappropriately. As a courtesy to all guests, please observe quiet hours at the hotels.

Registration will take place from 10 - 12. You will have several stations to go
through to pick up a t-shirt and flash drive, and a schedule based on your math level.
Your teacher will give you your name tag. You will get an individual picture taken for
the ID you'll receive in Los Alamos at the end of the year celebration in Los Alamos.
You will go to computer lab in Fidel to get a password for the weekend. You will take
a tour of the campus at 10, 10:30 or 11:00.

You will also get to choose an elective for Saturday evening after the Kickoff
Keynote, from 7:45 - 9:15.
The electives are Movie, Observatory, Web Design, Tech Writing, NetLogo for TNGers,
Processing, Q&A with Amanda, game room, and perhaps the gym.

General Schedule

Meet the Scientist

Each detailed schedule will have teams meeting with a scientist to get some
feedback about your project for the year. They would like to see your draft
proposal at that time. Info about proposals are at
http://challenge.nm.org/proposals
Students from CEPi1 last year asked if the scientists would bring business cards to
that you have their information after you meet with them. GUTS teams will meet to
talk with scientists too about a topic in science of especial interest to them.

Proposals

Six proposals have been submitted so far, good job CEPi1, Cleveland, Eldorado/La Queva,
Jackson, Los Alamos Mid and McCurdy! We are looking forward to many more proposals
posted in the next two weeks.

Team numbers

Team registration ids (1000-1099) will be changed in to team numbers (from 1-100)
after sorting the teams alphabetically by school. Once you submit a proposal, you'll
see what number your team is.

Mountain Hydrology

Here is an article to look at ahead of Amanda White's Keynote on Saturday evening
after dinner. It describes a project she has been associated with recently.

Looking forward to seeing you in less than two weeks,
Betsy, Celia and David

Monday Morning Message, September 27, 2010

Kickoff Keynote Speaker

Saturday night's keynote speaker will be Amanda White, a postdoc at New
Mexico Tech. Amanda received her B.S. at Old Dominion University in 1997,
her M.S. and Ph.D. at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2001
and 2006, respectively, all in Civil and Environmental Engineering. She
had been working as a postdoc at Los Alamos National Lab (2006-09) before
becoming part of the New Mexico EPSCoR project. Learn more at the
Kickoff Conference
web page.

Registration

There is still time to register for the Challenge but if you wish to go to
the Kickoff in Socorro you need to register immediately while there are still
a few hotel rooms available.

244 students and 44 teachers have signed up for the 2010-2011 Supercomputing
Challenge.

Housing at the Kickoff

Is someone coming with you to Socorro who hasn't registered for the Kickoff
(like a bus driver, chaperone, etc)? If so, please let Consult know as soon as
possible so that housing arrangements can be made.

Have you formed Teams?

Looking for teammates? Write up your project idea and email it to Consult
and we'll forward on to the student and teacher lists.

Proposals

Have you started your proposal? You can see the ones that have been submitted
to date at: http://www.challenge.nm.org/proposals.
Challenge teams should have proposals posted before the Kickoff Conference and
need to bring a hard copy of the proposal with them to the Kickoff so that they
can discuss their project with a scientist.

It's time to send in the Team Entry Authorization Form and the registration fee

Teachers

You are welcome to attach Purchase Orders for registration fees to email notes to
consult @ challenge.nm.org or to fax them to 505.508.3662.

There are several conferences and meetings coming up that may be of interest to you.
They have all been announced on the NM Science Mailing List. You may wish to sign up for
the Science list because we will rarely forward mail that is on the list. We assume
you'll sign up! The list is moderated. To sign up for the list, go to:
http://lists.aps.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/science

The New Mexico Celebration of Women in Computing is a two-day conference in Albuquerque.
It is inaugural and modeled after the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing.
There will be several interesting keynotes and panel discussions. There is no charge
for the conference and hotels and meals are complementary.
http://www.nmcwic.org

Registration

167 people have signed up so far. Next we will work on the hotel housing
lists which are due next week to the hotels in Socorro. Register as soon as
possible so we can make reservations for you.

Next Form Teams

Once you have registered, click on the Register or Manage Teams button at:
http://www.challenge.nm.org/registration.shtml
Twenty-six teams have registered so far. Next week the team registration id numbers will be changed to team numbers between 1 and 100,
after sorting the teams by schools.

Looking for teammates? Write up your project idea and email it to Consult and we'll forward
on to the student and teacher lists.

Proposals

Start working on a proposal for your project. One as already been posted
at: http://www.challenge.nm.org/proposals.
Challenge teams should have proposals posted before the Kickoff Conference and need to bring a
hard copy of the proposal with them to the Kickoff so that they can discuss their project with
a scientist.

Target Grants

Monday Morning Message, September 13, 2010

The roasting chile and pinon smells of autumn in New Mexico are here.
Time to start thinking about a computational science proposal for the Challenge.
It is starting to look a lot like La Nina http://www.cejournal.net/?p=3585

Registration Closes Early

Since the kickoff is October 16 and 17th, we need to get accurate numbers
for ordering t-shirts, housing, food, etc. so our registration closes September
20th. That is in one week! We currently have teams
registered from Artesia to Bloomfield from Quemado to Espanola.
St. Michael's in Santa Fe and Next Gen Academy are two new schools.

Next Form Teams

21st Annual Kickoff

Our kickoff will be held at NMTech this year, Saturday and Sunday, October 16 and 17th.
Students will take a series of classes related to their math level. Teachers will be
involved in classes including teamwork, helping underrepresented students, and climate
change activities from the NM Natural History Museum. We will be making housing
arrangement at local motels in early October.

These News Flashes are archived at http://www.challenge.nm.org/news_flash.shtml
so that you can review them at a later date. There is also a link at the top of each Challenge web page pointing
to Newsflash.

Tuesday Morning Message, September 7, 2010

Many plans are being made for the 21st Annual Supercomputing Challenge.
Yesterday, 10 Challenge staff/instructors/volunteers "labored" over plans
for the Kickoff Conference and a very exciting Kickoff is coming together.

Registration

Students and teachers are registering to participate in the 21st annual New Mexico
Supercomputing Challenge. Ten so far, 300 to go!

Proposals

Kickoff Conference

The Kickoff Conference
will be held October 16-17 in Socorro, New Mexico. Registration will be from
10:00-noon and tours of the Tech campus will take place at that time. Classes
will be held Saturday afternoon with a Keynote session at dinner and some
special activities after dinner. Another set of classes will be held Sunday
morning and the Conference may end before lunch.

The theme for this year's Challenge is climate modeling. Check out our
partner, EPSCoR.

Other Opportunities

The Challenge encourages participants to take advantage of other competitions
with their projects. Take a look at the
ThinkQuest International
Competition 2011. The submission deadline is just after the Challenge Expo next
April so use their guidelines as well, as you plan, prepare and work on your project.

Looking forward to seeing more registrations,

Betsy, Celia and David representing Consult, the Challenge Management Team

These News Flashes are archived at http://www.challenge.nm.org/news_flash.shtml
so that you can review them at a later date. There is also a link at the top of each Challenge web page pointing
to Newsflash.

Tuesday Morning Message, August 31, 2010

Are you ready for the 21st Annual Supercomputing Challenge?

Registration

Start forming teams to participate in the 21st annual New Mexico
Supercomputing Challenge.

These News Flashes are archived at http://www.challenge.nm.org/news_flash.shtml
so that you can review them at a later date. There is also a link at the top of each Challenge web page pointing
to Newsflash.

For questions about the Supercomputing Challenge, a 501(c)3 organization, contact us at: consult @ challenge.nm.org